Christmas Part I - Christmas at Home

Christmast this year was nothing short of magical! Our second and last Christmas as a family of three, our only Christmas in Kansas, and a beautiful White Christmas, it was an amazing time for our little family!

In keeping with our tradition of traveling to see our families either before or after Christmas but never  traveling over Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, we had a wonderful Christmas spent at home soaking up every minute together.

The week of Christmas it SNOWED more than 8 inches here in Kansas! So we kicked off Christmas Eve with three things: playing in the snow, eating our traditional Christmas Eve feast, and going to the candle light service at our church.

For our Christmas Eve lunch I made: ham, dressing, carrot soufflé, collard greens, and cream style corn. (I usually cook a turkey but after Thanksgiving I learned that during this pregnancy I don't like to see raw poultry and then eat it. Oops. So ham it was!) 

I must have been to busy to snap a picture of our meal but I did manage to get this picture of our dessert - my first ever pound cake. It was modeled after one of the flavors of our wedding cake: chocolate chip. Honey, who "doesn't like pound cake because it's too dry", could not get enough of this cake! I'm always so excited when I make something new that he loves!

After stuffing our faces and then taking a family-wide nap, we attended the Christmas Eve service at church! Parker loved the candles and with the help of a few trucks was a very good baby during the hour long service.

We wrapped up our Christmas Eve with some advent calendar chocolates and reading "The Night Before Christmas" in front of our Christmas tree. 

Finally it was Christmas Day! We woke up to find that Santa Claus had come to leave some presents (both wrapped and unwrapped!) and filled our stockings! 

Although we could not wait to let Parker dig into everything, he doesn't quite understand "Christmas" just yet... so to Parker it was a normal morning and the first order of business was breakfast.

After filling our bellies with our traditional breakfast of cinnamon rolls, we turned Parker loose to discover what Santa brought!

 

He loved playing with everything!

And he loved opening presents!

The big dump truck was a huge hit!

It was a wonderful Christmas morning!

After all the excitement of opening presents Parker took his morning nap and then we had our traditional big lunch of Christmas Eve leftovers. Then it was time to open our stockings! It was so much fun to let Christmas morning last as long as possible!

After playing with all of the new toys (mostly trucks!) Santa brought, we bundled up and headed out to play in our white Christmas snow!

It was such a wonderful Christmas!

I have to share this adorable "Christmas Craft" Parker made! It's a reindeer (in case you can't tell) made out of his hand prints for the body and head, and his thumb prints for the ear, eye, and nose. I know I will treasure these little prints forever and a day!

I hope your Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were filled with magic and blessings and family and good food! Just like ours. Until next year... Merry Christmas!

Happy Spring oh and Merry Christmas

Remember the time I forgot to blog about Parker's first Christmas? About our first Christmas as a family of three? As I was getting geared up to to share about Easter I remembered that Christmas was still waiting it's turn. Well no time like April for a post-Easter Christmas update!

We were so excited to spend our first family Christmas at our home in front of our tree with Santa coming down our chimney! Of course we wanted to see our families and celebrate with them too so we ended up having a mid-December pre-Christmas "Christmas" with both sides of the family. 

We headed to my parents and to Honey's parents for a few days at each house celebrating, exchanging gifts, eating good food and making memories of Parker's First Christmas. (Somehow I managed to get pictures of Parker with only one cousin on each side although he has two cousins on each side!)

Reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

On the way home from visiting with our families we stopped at the North Pole to sit on Santa's lap!

Then we returned home to begin our celebration! The day before Christmas Eve I spent the day Parker's nap times in the kitchen prepping a feast for us to eat on Christmas Eve. (Since I don't believe in spending Christmas Day in the kitchen, we enjoyed our family feast on Christmas Eve and leftovers on Christmas Day. I highly recommend this approach!)

Christmas Eve was so much fun! I got my dishes in the oven and my pots on the stove that morning while we enjoyed our day at home as a family. I even cooked a turkey. Yes. A Turkey. In my oven. Both Honey and I were surprised at how good it turned out since it was my first time. And I learned that cooking a turkey is sorta fun. Never EVER thought I'd say that! 

Also on the menu were Cornbread & Biscuit Dressing, Field Peas, Carrot Souffle, Brussels Sprouts with Hollandaise, Cheddar Bay Biscuits and of course the Turkey. Dessert was "Christmas Wreaths" and Campfire Pie. We loved every finger-licking minute of that meal and I have never felt more like a domestic wife + mommy!

Not long after Parker Bear went to bed on Christmas Eve, Honey and I placed some milk and homemade Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies by the fire and went to bed ourselves. Sometime that night Santa Claus arrived and filled our stockings and placed our presents beneath the tree. We were so excited!! Our first Christmas with a baby for us to begin to share the wonders of Christmas with!!

Christmas was so much fun! Parker woke up at his usual time (9 am) and after he nursed we brought him down to let him begin to explore what Santa Claus brought. 

It was so much fun! Of course the gifts with their shiny paper and bright bows were often times more exciting to him that the actual gifts but it made such a fun morning opening presents together. 

Here is what our Christmas morning looked like:

During Parker's nap, Honey and I exchanged our presents and then after Parker woke up we all had lunch together. We spent the afternoon playing, playing, playing!! 

It was such a wonderfully fun Christmas and I never, ever want to forget it. I already can't wait for next Christmas when Parker will be nineteen months old. The fun continues...

So Merry Christmas, er, Happy Spring!